Twas the night before Easter....

It just occurred to me (while going all Tolstoy on a comment page) that my thoughts and words may be better suited here in Blogville, USA.

Anyway, Lent in south Louisiana (and other hardcore Christian areas) is hell for non-theists. The following is a quick list of the reasons why. Why a list? Because I'm a guy and guy's like lists and tournaments...that's why:

1) Easter dress shopping...c'mon...really?
2) Even more people walking around asking you about church, getting saved, etc.
3) Yes, I'm from the swamps of Louisiana. No, I'm not a big seafood eater. No, I will not abstain from a juicy steak at our table just because it's Fundie Friday and you're all of a sudden "holy".
4) Local banks are closed on good Friday. WTF? It's just another Friday. If that it were a payday and I got a paper check, my bank being closed means that Friday is anything but good!
5) The post-Easter Monday morning coffee break/ water cooler Easter "service" replay. The play-by-play analysis of each and every hour of church festivities. This happens around here alot on just about any Monday but since Easter is the Christian Super Bowl, it's worse! All that's missing is the guy who constantly repeats some lame joke from an expensive commercial.

So while I honestly considered going to church on Easter with the family, I've decided not to go. I don't see the reason. I'm staying Zombie free.

Shondrah, there are many African American atheists here. The Black Freethought group on Atheist Nexus has nearly 100 members. I suggest you join the group and start a discussion there about your research. I'm sure they'd love to know about it and you will probably find more participants.

There are (to my knowledge) currently two Atheist Nexus members actively researching and writing papers regarding atheism: Professor Tom Arcaro, a sociologist from Elon University is studying 'Coming Out in the Bible Belt' and has put many of his initial findings in blogs here (which you can access from his page); and with the help of some of our Australian members, I recently researched and wrote a large submission on atheism in Australia to the Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. This submission is available to read here on Atheist Nexus.

I believe you'll find Tom's thoughts on 'social believers' interesting, and I've added a reply to that blog with an extract from our submission.

You may also be interested in exploring atheists who are both black and gay - there are a couple of gay groups here on Nexus, including Gay Atheists with nearly 150 members.

We have just started to publicize work of this kind on Nexus. If you would like to send me a message with a short blurb about your research, I'll make sure it's mentioned under AN in Action.

I also suggest that you write a blog about it as that will appear for a while on the home page, which gets a great deal of traffic.

I am a sociologist in the Department of Sociology, Social Work, and Criminology at Morehead State University. I have studied and published on the nexus of domestic violence and religion for more than ten years now. Recently, however, my research interests have been moving in a different but still familiar direction. I’d like to start an analysis of African American atheists/secularists/humanists/skeptics/freethinkers to derive, through in depth interviews, their critique of the religion, Black church and the consequences that may follow in having a non-theistic or skeptical stance. As you can imagine, attaining African American atheist respondents is MAJOR undertaking. Therefore, when I saw your picture and profile after "thumbing" through a Louisiana atheist website (I'm from Monroe, originally, but am currently in the New Orleans area with relatives), I immediately decided to take a chance and contact you! If you'd like to know more about this research I would be happy to talk with you. If you would feel comfortable with my interviewing you, that would be great as well. I'd love to hear your story and learn about your experiences as a man of color who chooses freethinking. Feel free to contact me on facebook or at s.nash@moreheadstate.edu. I'll reply ASAP.

Love the list. It's even worse here on the shiny buckle of the bible belt...... it goes on 24-7-365 here. BTW....I'm BlueJeanGirl's mom. We used to gently argue religion during her Pente days, but I always knew she would come to her senses. lol
We spent the day with my daughter who lives close by me. It was Sunday....the ham was cookin....great excuae for a family get-togather. I'm atheist...everyone else is agnostic....still, a good time was had by all.

I think it would be cool if atheists would go out to fast-food restaurants and eat all the fish sandwiches they can on Good Friday; I mean, really invite all your non-Christian friends over, Muslims and Jews; eat all the fish and watch the Christians get frustrated, throw their hands up and just eat burgers 'cause they're lazy like the rest of us.

We enjoyed having a fish dinner on Friday - just a good excuse to have fish. We had the family over for Easter Sunday and had roast lamb etc. Again, just a nice family day. We enjoy the event as a cultural and family occasion and see no reason why we should miss out on the fun just because we're not religious. After all, Easter predates Christianity by thousands of years.